Evening Energy Watercolor

I just finished Evening Energy watercolor painting today. My goal was to add texture and to use a limited palette. Below are the stages of this painting from the initial drawing to the completed watercolor.

Above is the pencil drawing for the watercolor painting. This freehand drawing is done in graphite pencil right on the watercolor paper. I kept the drawing light so I could still see the pencil lines but could easily erase them when the painting was finished. Sometimes the paint covers these light pencil lines and there is no need to erase them.

Here the first raw sienna wash is shown from a photo I posted on instagram during the painting process. The yellow wash was painted on most of the background at this stage. This layer of color helps create a glow for the subsequent layers of paint. Colorful grey’s were painted on the deck and the flowers received the first layer of color. From here I continued adding layers of color until Evening Energy was completed. I painted almost the entire painted with 3 colors: a yellow – pink – blue. Mixing these 3 colors in varying amounts for a variety of warm or cool colors. Lighten or darken these pretty greys throughout the painting. Try painting with a limited palette using any yellow, red (or pink) and a blue and you may be surprised at the results.